


of screenshots and selfies

by choose_joy



Series: in every lifetime [4]
Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, M/M, Modern Era, snapchat au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:34:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27952406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/choose_joy/pseuds/choose_joy
Summary: hamid tries to send a snapchat to sasha.it doesn't work quite to plan.
Relationships: Hamid Saleh Haroun al-Tahan/Zolf Smith
Series: in every lifetime [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1992436
Comments: 1
Kudos: 20





	of screenshots and selfies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coralreefskim](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coralreefskim/gifts).



“C’mon, Sasha,” Hamid whines, sticking irritatingly close to her side as she tries (and fails) to scrub the pastry tray clean so she can keep moving, “Everyone has a snapchat, it‘s such a fun way to keep in touch!”

“Hamid, I told you, I don’t have one,” she tries, again, scrubbing a bit harder at the caked on sugar. 

“Sashaaaaaaaaaaa—“

“Fine!” she says, throwing soapy hands in the air, “Fine, you can add me on snapchat! Whatever!”

Hamid cheers quietly from her side and sticks out his phone for her to type her username in, so she dries off her hands (enough) and types it in. “There, will you leave me alone?”

“Yes! Thank you, Sasha!! I promise you won’t regret it!” and off he goes to empty out the drip carafes. 

~~~

**firebreath** has sent you a new image. open?

When Zolf opens the snapchat (out of pure curiosity— no one snapchats him), what he doesn’t expect is an extremely attractive halfling to be making an overdramatic crying face at the camera with the caption “trying to close early at work and someone walks in at 4:59”. Honestly, he’s not sure what he was expecting— with a name like that, maybe some rando doing some vape tricks? 

Nevertheless, and probably against better judgement, he snaps back with a picture of the food he’s cooking in front of him and captions it “who are you?”

He puts down his phone to stir the curry again when it buzzes almost immediately, displaying the same message. He sighs, unlocks his phone, and clicks on the new one. 

Once again, it's the same halfling, this time with an overexaggerated confused face with the caption “isn’t this sasha?”

Of course. “Hey Sasha? You give my snapchat to someone?” he calls out, leaning into the living room to look for her. 

Her head pops up from the couch, and he barely stifles a start. “Uh... no?” she replies, confused. “Oh, no, wait! I gave it to Hamid ‘cus he wouldn’t leave me alone about getting mine.”

He just stares at her. “You don’t have a snapchat.”

“Nope!” she replies, popping the “p”, “But you do!”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” he grumbles, turning back to the curry. 

After they eat, he remembers he never responded, and honestly, even if it was a mistaken communication, it’d be rude to leave the halfling on read. So, he snaps a quick selfie before he can think twice of it, captions it with “i’m her roommate, sorry mate, she doesn’t have one”, and then forgets all about it. 

~~~

In all honesty, the Snapchat Debacle is forgotten relatively quickly. When Hamid asks Sasha about it at work the next day, she brushes it off with a “I told you I don’t have snapchat, why can you just text like a normal person?” and Hamid laughs and they end up texting regularly. It‘s nice, and things are less awkward now that they’re getting to know each other, so when Hamid gets a notification that  **driftwooddolphin** has sent him an image, he’s thrown for a loop. 

The image he opens is not at all what he’s expecting. For some reason, this stranger (Sasha’s roommate, but still a stranger) has sent him an image of the ocean, which he seems to be flipping off. There’s no caption, but Hamid can’t help but chuckle at the irony of someone with an ocean username telling the ocean itself to piss off. 

So, he sends a selfie back. A simple one, just an inquisitive look on his face, with the caption “not an ocean lover? i wouldn’t have guessed”. 

They keep talking for the rest of the night. 

~~~

_ Ping!  _

_ Ping! _

_ Ping! _

“Hamid, who the hell is texting you so much?” Sasha asks from behind the register, “Your phone is blowing up, you have to stop the dings.”

Hamid’s face flushes a bright red as he reaches out to grab his phone from where it's plugged into the aux cable. “Oh, uh, it's Zolf,” he stutters. 

Sasha’s eyes widen as she takes in this new information. “Huh,” she says. 

“It’s nothing, really!” Hamid replies, anxiously, “It’s just, he likes to hear about the store, a—and I think he takes some cool nature pictures, it's— it's nothing, really!”

“Mhm, sure,” Sasha responds, turning back to the register, “Whatever you say, boss.”

~~~

The thing is, Hamid doesn’t really know what Zolf looks like, for all they snapchat. After that first selfie (which Hamid moved past pretty quickly in his embarrassment), he hasn’t sent any more. When Hamid asked about it, Zolf mentioned that he wasn’t altogether too pleased with his appearance, so Hamid let it go (even if secretly he thinks that can't possibly be true). Since then, it's all shots of the ocean, or the food Zolf is cooking that evening, or the mysterious cat that visits his and Sasha’s apartment once a week at midnight on the dot. 

Hamid, in contrast, sends almost exclusively selfies. He’s not above using the “basic” filters (the dog filter is adorable, shut up), and he actually knows how stories work. Almost every day he’ll post an OOTD before he leaves for work, and it's definitely a confidence boost to see how many people watch those stories (and if he smiles a little wider when Zolf in particular watches them, well, that’s his business). 

The point is, they get into a rhythm. It works, too, because Hamid loves attention, and Zolf actually  _ enjoys  _ talking to someone relatively “low-stakes”— hey, it's not as if they actually know each other. 

~~~

_ Ding!  _

The bell over the coffeeshop door announces the arrival of  _ yet another  _ customer, and Hamid can’t help but let a little groan out before he plasters on his “customer service” smile. Before him is an (honestly quite attractive) dwarf, who is... bright red, for some reason. 

“Welcome to the Little Dipper, what can I get started for you today?” Hamid asks, reaching for a paper cup. 

The dwarf clears their throat, eyes flitting briefly over the menu and avoiding Hamid’s gaze. “Uh, could I get— uh... a lavender latte?”

“Sure thing!” Hamid chirps, writing the shorthand down on the cup and putting the order into the machine. “Anything else?”

“Oh. Uh, no,” the dwarf responds, handing over some cash, “Or. Uh. Your number?” 

Hamid flushes as red as the dwarf in front of him. “Oh! Uh! I’m so sorry, I— I am actually... dating. Someone. Already.” 

The dwarf’s face crumples, and Hamid’s unsure why it hurts him to see that. “Right,” he says, “Sorry about that.”

“No, it's fine!” Hamid giggles, a bit too loudly, before the air gets uncomfortably quiet again. 

As soon as the drink is made, the dwarf leaves, faster than anything. The second he does, Hamid whips out his phone, sending a frazzled-looking selfie to Zolf, with the caption “work’s totally crazy today :p”. 

He doesn’t get a response. 

~~~

In fact, Zolf doesn’t snap him back for almost a week. When Hamid tries to ask Sasha what’s wrong, she just glares at him, and, well, he knows when to stop asking. 

So it comes as a surprise when he get that notification that  **driftwooddolphin** screenshotted his story. It's a simple outfit of the day— he’s gotten a new cardigan in and it perfectly matches this turtleneck he’s been trying to style for ages, and he looks quite attractive, if he says so himself. 

Still, it doesn’t explain why Zolf would screenshot it. So, he messages him, right under the screenshot notification. All he says is “oh?”

Zolf doesn’t respond, again. 

_ Damn,  _ he thinks. 

~~~

“Sasha, I’m begging you, it's been two weeks, just tell me what I did wrong!” Hamid whines, once again cornering Sasha when she’s on dish duty. 

“Hamid, I told you, I’m not getting involved,” she says, threatening to spray him with the sink. 

“I don’t know what I did! If you tell me, I can fix it! Please, please, please, please, pl—“ Hamid’s not above annoying someone to get what he wants. 

And again, it works, because Sasha snaps the sink handle off and turns to him, disappointment in her eyes as she places her hands on her hips. “You led him on and then turned him down when he asked you out, Hamid. That’s a really shit thing to do, even I know that.”

Huh. 

“But wait,” Hamid says, “He never asked me out?”

“Oh my god!” Sasha says, throwing soapy hands in the air and beginning to walk away. 

“No, see, I would have remembered!” Hamid says, running after her, “I would have said yes!”

That stops her. “Hamid,” she says, turning around slowly, “He literally came in here and asked you out two weeks ago and you turned him down.”

_ Oh,  _ Hamid thinks, finally realizing, “Wait, that’s who that was? He said he was ugly!”

Now it's Sasha’s turn to look puzzled. “You’ve been snapchatting him nonstop for over a month and you don’t know what he looks like? Hamid, what the hell?”

Hamid’s face turns bright red. “I didn’t know! Oh my gods, Sasha, you have to believe me!”

She just snorts and walks away, muttering something akin to “idiots” under her breath. 

~~~

So this is why Hamid finds himself on Sasha (and Zolf’s) doorstep after work, bouquet of flowers in hand and apologetic smile on his face as he knocks. When Zolf opens the door a few moments later, he’ll explain everything, they’ll have a good laugh, and they’ll try it again. 

Sasha will send a snapchat to Azu later that night when Hamid and Zolf are curled up on the couch, both fast asleep as the rest of a movie plays on the screen. “Mission accomplished” she’ll caption it. 

Azu will respond with a screen full of hearts. 

**Author's Note:**

> at least once a week i will spiral over a random riverbank au in kim's dms, so i thought i'd make this one official! there's so much more Lore to this, but it was really fun to write out this little bit. this is officially a public kim appreciation fic! everyone say ty kim for indulging my hyperfixation!
> 
> this work is the third installment in my series "in every lifetime", a bunch of rqg-centric au drabbles for a number of groupings (both romantic and platonic), tied together under the guise of "soulmates" (which you can read about in my intro work). i plan on writing quite a few, but if you have any prompts that you'd like to see, i'm always happy to chat! i'm @choose__joy on twitter and thisisadingdongblog on tumblr!


End file.
